Video shows men jumping into action to help women who lost control of ATV and fell into SW Miami-Dade canal; 1 dead

By Jessica Holly, Jack Royer, Kevin Boulandier, Julian Quintana

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    MIAMI, Florida (WSVN) — Two men jumped into action with the help of officials after two women lost control of their ATV and fell into a canal in Southwest Miami-Dade, and part of the rescue efforts were caught on camera.

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue units arrived at the scene of the crash in the area of Southwest 112th Street and 157th Avenue, Thursday afternoon.

“All units en route to advise, two females went into the body of water, one did not come up,” said a 911 operator.

According to Miami-Dade Police, two women were riding the ATV when the driver lost control, and they both fell into the water.

As fire rescue arrives, a surveillance camera captures the body of one of the women floating in the swift moving water.

Video obtained by 7News shows Dennis Padilla and his son bringing out ladders and life jackets after they heard the commotion outside their home.

Padilla said he didn’t hesitate to help.

“So, my son and I, we grabbed a ladder,” said Padilla.

Padilla lowered the ladder as MDFR officials jumped into the water and guided one of the victims, who said she couldn’t swim, to the ladder.

“It just came in as second nature, you know? ‘Hey, somebody needs help, we’ve got a ladder, we know how to do this, we’ve done this in the past,’ so we just jumped right into it,” said Padilla.

Padilla’s son stripped his clothing and jumped into the canal to help.

“So my son jumps in, but it was just the helmet floating around,” said Padilla.

Rescue crews then focused on finding the second victim who remained in the canal.

“I need all rescuers to come up, and I need all divers. We still have one patient in the water, and we cannot locate at this time,” said a rescue unit.

“She kept yelling, ‘Hey, my cousin, my cousin.’ We knew there was a second victim, we just didn’t know where she was at,” said Padilla.

The second woman was pulled from the water several minutes later.

“Probably about 30 minutes later, they found the body roughly in the same location that we found the helmet,” said Padilla.

She was transported to HCA Florida Kendall Hospital, where she succumbed to her injuries.

Padilla said it is a sad outcome to the situation.

“It’s just an unfortunate incident where we were able to save one person, but unfortunately, we couldn’t get to the second victim,” he said.

Padilla said the surviving victim told him the other woman was her cousin, and they were both visiting South Florida from New York.

As of late Thursday night, police have not released the women’s identities.

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